Why Relationships Matter

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Overthinking turns everyday uncertainty into emotional danger.

Repeated reassurance-seeking fuels anxiety.

Relationship partners can feel emotionally exhausted and get burned out.

Lilly stared at me blankly in her couples session with her husband Phil. She thought she had been "checking in" with Phil to show her caring about their relationship. She just wanted some closeness, connection, and reassurance that everything was okay between them. And, after all, she felt, "Are you mad at me?" sounds like a simple, innocent five-word question.

Most relationships don't end due to one explosive argument. Rather, as in the case of Lilly and Phil, they wear down over time through tension, mental exhaustion, and repeated patterns that neither may fully understand at the time.

An Overthinking Nervous System Scanning for Danger Is Destructive

Phil looked at Lilly and then at me and said, "She won't let it be. I'm like, dude, enough already with needing me to reassure you." I see this same dynamic frequently with couples, parents, teens, and adult........

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